Re: 27 Killed In Texas Church Massacre

From my perspective, the crime around here is ‘low’ because of guns. Nobody is foolish enough to break into anyone’s house, or rob a local business, around here as most homeowners and shop owners are “packing” and are not afraid to defend themselves. We recently had a couple of (foolish) guys try to rob a jewelry store at a local mall near here. They learned the hard way that crime does not pay, by the “pistol packing” customers in the jewelry store. One robber died, and the other was wounded and arrested.

It seems to me that, without citizens having the right to carry guns, this would only encourage more crime, ...not deter it. Maybe the city of Chicago is going about it the wrong way? Taking away and restricting citizen gun ownership in the hopes of reducing crime, only seems to make matters worse.

Again, this is just my viewpoint. Please do not berate or pound on me because my viewpoint differs from yours.

-- RJG

See my post above, page one, on the cultural divide, and how guns are a proxy for larger issues.

We definitely need to have a dialog.

It may be useful to look at statistics of gun homicides in nations where the ownership of guns is more strictly controlled. I say "useful" because it helps to have facts, when considering how things "seem" to be. Those nations apparently do not see gun ownership as "a necessity to a civil society." What experiences do you think led them to that conclusion?

In that same spirit of statistical reality (i.e. guns more often are turned on their owners or family members, than on true "bad guys"), I would venture that I would feel safer in a jewelry store where the robbers were handed some jewelry and left, than one where other customers start discharging firearms at people who also had firearms. I think your jewelry store customers and employees were very lucky. Also, I know that you RJG have studied logic, so I know that you are aware of the relatively low value of anecdotal evidence in making policy decisions. What if we compared the number of robberies successfully foiled, with robberies where a shopkeeper goes for his gun and is, himself, wounded or killed by the robber? (this is why the police, who have some expertise on these matters, recommend handing over the money or goods and not trying to be a "hero")

And, finally, what is the value of a bystander's life, measured against the value of hanging onto a few pieces of shiny merchandise? Again, I know what trained law enforcement officers have to say on that question.

There you go, RJG. No pounding, no berating, just some questions for you to consider. Good day.

In fact, there seems to be no objective correlation between guns and crime: I think it's a perceived one, based on local anecdotal evidence. That is, when a crime is prevented by a gun-toting citizen in a gun-loving state, that story is magnified and repeated, reinforcing the views already held by the people who tell it and hear it. Meanwhile, they ignore the hundred other crimes that were not prevented in the same week. Similarly, if an armed citizen in an anti-gun state shoots himself in the foot while being robbed by unarmed muggers, that story makes the rounds, reinforcing their opposition to gun ownership.

Of course, there is plenty of hard evidence connecting the number of guns to the number of gun-deaths - homicidal, accidental and suicidal. Obviously. But there are two more facets to that situation, as well: the conditions of gun licensing - whether the owners are properly vetted and trained - and the type of guns they own. Rural Canadians generally have hunting rifles and/or shotguns, but they are much less prone to shooting one another (on purpose) than hand-gun owning urban Canadian, who are less likely to shoot one another than their US counterparts. Seriously, why does anyone need a military arsenal... unless they intend to protect the persecuted minorities for whom the government comes?

Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Except that he's usually misquoted. No matter: substitute Japanese, Haitians, Muslims and Mexicans - Seriously, are the most gun-committed Americans really the most committed to opposing tyranny? How much self-delusion is at work here?

If there were to be a meaningful discussion, the same statitics would have to be acknowledged by all participants in that discussion and they would have to stop yelling and they would have to take into account several other pertinent factors that are even more difficult to grasp. With the current factional mind-sets, I don't believe that's possible.

Re: 27 Killed In Texas Church Massacre

Braininvat wrote:…guns more often are turned on their owners or family members, than on true "bad guys”

Yes, I tend to agree with you, especially if this includes the “accidental” home shootings due to the gun owner not properly locking the guns away from unauthorized kids or kid’s friends.

Braininvat wrote:I would venture that I would feel safer in a jewelry store where the robbers were handed some jewelry and left, than one where other customers start discharging firearms at people who also had firearms.

In this scenario, …yes, I would also feel “safer” for the owner to just hand over the loot. But my preference would be for this robbery not to have happened in the first place!

Braininvat wrote:What if we compared the number of robberies successfully foiled, with robberies where a shopkeeper goes for his gun and is, himself, wounded or killed by the robber?

Playing 'devil's advocate' here, aren't you missing a very important piece of data, - which is the ‘total number' of attempted robberies? If the robber knew the store owner and/or patrons were also armed, then would the robbery have even been attempted?

So which scenario actually saves more lives? -- -- A non-robbery, or a robbery where the owner/patrons comply (without resistance) to the robber's demands?

As a side comment -- I do find it somewhat comical that some of our local businesses post “No Guns Permitted” on their front door. This seems to be an open invitation to be robbed. Making the assumption that a “bad guy” will actually obey the sign on the door, seems absurd.

It would be much better, for the business owner to put up a sign that states “All employees are armed”, then the likelihood of being robbed goes to zero!

Many of us put up signs in our yard or stickers on our window to let would-be bad guys know that our “home is protected by XYZ Security Services” even if it is just a 'dummy' sign and we actually have no such security service. The point is that the bad-guy would rather not take a chance of getting caught and move onto something else.

Unfortunately, I see the same 'comical-ness' with enacting (some) new gun laws. I agree that we need to keep the bad guys from getting guns. But we don't do it by making it illegal for ALL citizens to have guns. This would mean that the "good-guys" (those that obey the law) will not have guns, and the "bad-guys" (that don't obey the law) will have guns, further compounding a bad problem into a much worse problem.

Re: 27 Killed In Texas Church Massacre

Then how come there are fewer guns and less crime in New York than Dallas? Quite a lot less crime, apparently, though New York state has half the gun ownership of Texas. Whereas, between Honolulu and San Antonio - Hawaii having the lowest gun ownership rate - the statistics are comparable on nearly all crimes; somewhat higher in Texas.

Re: 27 Killed In Texas Church Massacre

Toucana -- I don’t think those here (that have lost family members) think that thoughts and prayers are ever “good enough”. But this is 'all' they have to hang onto. These are real people that are hurting. Please don't belittle them. Erica’s tweet is as insensitive and heartless as it gets.

Serpent -- these are interesting statistics, but isn’t 'crime' really related to the number of bad-guys doing bad things? And not necessarily related to the number of guns per capita?

If we wish to somehow correlate guns-to-crime, then shouldn't we look at the 'ratio' of guns between the good-guys and the bad-guys? Isn't it this ratio that effects the direction of the crime level?

In other words, if we had half as many total guns, but they were all (100%) in the hands of the bad-guys, then crime would be at an extremely high rate.

Or if we had double the quantity of guns, but they were all (100%) in the hands of the good-guys, then crime would be at a very low rate.

So it is not necessarily the 'quantity' of guns that really matter, ...agreed?

Re: 27 Killed In Texas Church Massacre

RJG » November 8th, 2017, 5:23 pm wrote:Serpent -- these are interesting statistics, but isn’t 'crime' really related to the number of bad-guys doing bad things? And not necessarily related to the number of guns per capita?

That's what I said. Guns do not cause crime and they do not prevent crime. Different kinds of crime are the result of different circumstance - and not necessarily "bad guys", either. Why would Dallas have so many more "bad guys" than Oslo? Maybe the Swedes put niceness in the water supply? Maybe they have a higher vaccination rate or lower economic disparity? Must be some factor other than legal assault weapons.

If we wish to somehow correlate guns-to-crime, then shouldn't we look at the 'ratio' of guns between the good-guys and the bad-guys? Isn't it this ratio that effects the direction of the crime level?

If we could "somehow correlate"? Wasn't it you who claimed a cause-effect relationship? Anyway, no. If it were so, it would only bolster my position. Presumably, the states that regulate more stringently are holding down the level of good-guy-gun-possession (legal), which would suggest that the ratio favours the bad-guy-gun-owners (illegal). In spite of which crime is similar or lower in those states.

In other words, if we had half as many total guns, but they were all (100%) in the hands of the bad-guys, then crime would be at an extremely high rate.

Or if we had double the quantity of guns, but they were all (100%) in the hands of the good-guys, then crime would be at a very low rate.

So it is not necessarily the 'quantity' of guns that really matter, ...agreed?

I'm not sure - that depends on what the above means. I can't make out the math. Or how you could make it happen. By all means, try it for a year and we'll see how the stats work out.

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Toucana -- I don’t think those here (that have lost family members) think that thoughts and prayers are ever “good enough”. But this is 'all' they have to hang onto. These are real people that are hurting. Please don't belittle them. Erica’s tweet is as insensitive and heartless as it gets.

The people being belittled are the people who think that owning and firing guns is a natural and normal thing for ordinary civilised people to do.

What would you like to say to all the politicians, law-makers, gun manufacturers and NRA lobbyists who say that tragedies like this could be avoided if only more people took guns to church, or university, or elementary school - or wherever the most recent massacre just took place ?

If you like statistics, then you might want to reflect on this one:

The gun used in Sutherland Springs was a Ruger AR-556, an Armalite/M16 knock-off semi-automatic assault rifle that retails at around $849. There are said to be up to 8 million of these AR15 type weapons sold and currently in civilian hands within the USA representing a market worth some $6.8 billion at current prices.

Re: 27 Killed In Texas Church Massacre

toucana » November 8th, 2017, 7:21 pm wrote:The gun used in Sutherland Springs was a Ruger AR-556, an Armalite/M16 knock-off semi-automatic assault rifle that retails at around $849. There are said to be up to 8 million of these AR15 type weapons sold and currently in civilian hands within the USA representing a market worth some $6.8 billion at current prices.

Same type of weapon used in Sandy Hook and in Las Vegas too.

Not many fourth-graders could afford that on their allowance. No matter how good they were, they'd likely be outgunned.

Re: 27 Killed In Texas Church Massacre

I'm really liking RJG's argument here. Also someone should throw in the stats for Nevada (which I assume is high but not where I live and tons of people carry) Idaho and Montana where people think you are crazy if you don't have a gun. Please include these other areas where there is a HIGH gun ownership and people carry concealed everywhere they go.

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I also believe that instead of all the talking heads in states far and away jump all over gun control, Why don't they ask the people of Southerland Springs Texas and other areas where there is high gun ownership what they think about if they want to outlaw guns. Classic case of people going in and telling others how they should live. Yes I know people can carry guns across state boarders easier than country boarders but people who live in the affected areas of shootings should have more of a say than those who don't. That does make it tricky but let's step back and look at exactly who is anti-gun lobby and see if they are even related to affected areas. Just like we should investigate who funds research, we should look into the background of the lobby organizations.

I attended an ACLU meeting where a woman who lost her sun to being shot was single handedly trying to outlaw guns around the whole state of California. All I'm going to say is it's interesting how these things get shaped.

Re: 27 Killed In Texas Church Massacre

Serpent » November 7th, 2017, 9:57 am wrote:You can't have a reasoned discussion among people who have had their vocabulary and numeracy abstracted away, and been conditioned to discourse in chanted slogans and tractor-caps.

Or pussy hats. The stupidity is bipartisan these days. How's that national scream going?

I agree with you very strongly about malaise. More than that. There's a sickness in the American soul. Lot of reasons for it. Not the time or place to go into it. Myself I am not a fan of US foreign policy. The moral sickness abroad can't help but come home.

But the problems go a lot deeper than left versus right. As a lifelong liberal I detest what the left has become. You dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as a trailer hat. That arrogance from the left is part of what's killing this country.

toucana » November 8th, 2017, 6:21 pm wrote:The people being belittled are the people who think that owning and firing guns is a natural and normal thing for ordinary civilised people to do.

Ok I'll take that bait. 40,000 people a year die in car wrecks. Couple decades back it was 50k, then safer cars and societal awareness of drunk driving reduced it to 33k for a long time. Now it's up to 40k. Texting probably.

Now I happen to love to drive. I would definitely say that for me "owning and driving cars is a natural and normal thing for ordinary civilized people do to."

As a society we've decided that 40k is an acceptable number of deaths to have an automobile-focussed society.

Now among some people in the country -- you know, the deplorables -- guns do happen to be natural or normal. You grow up on the farm and you shoot guns and drive tractors and it's just part of life.

I am trying to explain the mentatlity of why part of America regard guns as part of their lives. It's normal for them. So when you simply belittle people based on what they consider normal; but you take as normal the things that YOU consider normal; can you see that from a Martian's perspective, you are lacking in self-awareness?

Are superhighways and our dependency on oil normal? Not really. A lot of people wish we'd spent the 20th century investing in mass transit and not cars. Cars are tools. Guns are tools. To some people. I understand you are a city slicker and not a country bumpkin. But can't you even understand that from their point of view their ownership of guns is perfectly normal and part of civilization? After all if a Martian came down and saw that you own a car and that you live in a society where everyone drives around in cars that pollute the air and distort our politics and destroy our sense of community? A Martian might think cars are worse than guns. After all more people die of cars.

Re: 27 Killed In Texas Church Massacre

someguy1 » November 8th, 2017, 10:35 pm wrote:[S -- You can't have a reasoned discussion among people who have had their vocabulary and numeracy abstracted away, and been conditioned to discourse in chanted slogans and tractor-caps. ]Or pussy hats. The stupidity is bipartisan these days. How's that national scream going?

What national scream? What are pussy-hats?

I agree with you very strongly about malaise. More than that. There's a sickness in the American soul. Lot of reasons for it.

Yes...

Not the time or place to go into it.

When is? When will be? Ever?

The moral sickness abroad can't help but come home.

Abroad? Really - you think this is an imported sickness of the soul? I think it's been there since the pilgrims killed the Indians who showed them where to stalk wild turkey and where to plant corn. It's been there since the Seminole were marched off to Oklahoma. It's been there since the first shipment of African slaves landed in 1619 and were found to be better workers, and survive longer than captured natives and indentured or transported Europeans. It's always been there.

But the problems go a lot deeper than left versus right.

No kidding!

You dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as a trailer hat. That arrogance from the left is part of what's killing this country.

I don't recall trailers being mentioned. Your president - your head of state, commander in chief, leader of the frickin Free World - just exchanged signed look-alike tractor-caps with the president of Japan. His supporters chant slogans all the time, about everything they hold dear. And I'm being arrogant or dismissive? Look a little ahead of the cap comment: stolen vocabulary and numeracy were the operative concepts. Selective reading and loose interpretation may be added at will, but that would presuppose literacy.

Yes, cars are bad. Given the economics and geography of modern urban life, it's difficult for Americans to earn a living without car ownership, so banning them might be problematic. Cars were not invented and are not manufactured for the sole and express purpose of killing, but they are used to kill - sometimes deliberately; in fact, vehicular homicide is becoming quite fashionable. However, cars have always been more closely regulated than guns; technology constantly upgraded to make drivers, passengers and traffic safer; laws constantly passed (and voiceferously opposed) to make them less lethal. Not a truly apt comparison, imo.

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I think SG's point is also Davd Brooks' point, that we all have prejudices about what makes a civil life. I do wonder if those in favor of more gun control are really a "lobby," though...

That does make it tricky but let's step back and look at exactly who is anti-gun lobby and see if they are even related to affected areas. Just like we should investigate who funds research, we should look into the background of the lobby organizations.

I don't believe the majority of Americans who favor some gun control are all part of an industry group or organization, they are just taking a stand on public policy based on one intuition about how the streets might be a bit safer. That large group is a bit too amorphous to be a "lobby" IMO.

I, for instance, am not part of a lobby. I just notice that nations that ban assault weapons and tightly screen purchasers and have banned private gun shows (where a lot of illegal purchases are made by those with a criminal record and/or history of violence) seem to be getting better results and have yet to be overthrown by tyrants.

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Sorry I asked. Still, it doesn't look as if I've missed much, other than a reinforcement of the impression I've formed that Americans communicate in slogans and headgear. Is it relevant to crime statistics, gun ownership, regulation, mass murder, reasoned political debate, or the constitutionality of citizens having unlimited access assault weapons while the balance of their minds are disturbed? (...none of which matters you have addressed, incidentally,)I don't need to know every symptom of malaise in your clashing-culture-cluster; I do try to discover the pertinent facts regarding a current topic. I'll sink back into my torpor now.

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He's not overseas, just north of the border. Wearing headgear in a crowd that's trying to express solidarity doesn't really seem like too radical or shrill a thing. Pretty much every nation in the world has had political groups that wear special clothes and have mottos and such. Some of them may seem silly, some may provoke thought (e.g. the Quaker's famous slogan on the death penalty, "Why do we kill people in order to teach them that it is wrong to kill people?"), and I would say it's best to approach these matters on a case-by-case basis. Does the group respond more to the self-proclaimed authority of a figurehead, or to facts and evidence? That's usually a good starting point.

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zetreque » November 8th, 2017, 8:00 pm wrote:I'm really liking RJG's argument here. Also someone should throw in the stats for Nevada (which I assume is high but not where I live and tons of people carry) Idaho and Montana where people think you are crazy if you don't have a gun. Please include these other areas where there is a HIGH gun ownership and people carry concealed everywhere they go.

Firearm deaths are consistently higher in states like Montana and Idaho which have minimal standards for gun permitting and allow carry. And other sources, if you need that broken down more, show that the higher rate is found in suicides and gun homicides, i.e. not "good shootings."

But you knew that already, didn't you, from several other threads we've had on this topic, including the one that Paul Anthony started and ran for nearly 40 pages a few years back?

I am going to stop posting factual information, because I don't think that's of much interest here. As has been discussed, people have certain basic feelings about what guns mean in terms of societal security and they will stay pretty entrenched in that due to the way guns are a proxy for their larger feelings about belonging to an identifiable American culture. Facts are to be weaponized in America, not objectively and calmly examined. (see today's new thread on how unconscious influences may drive the way people seek to validate their beliefs...viewtopic.php?nomobile=1&f=124&t=33792

....or don't read it, because the authority figures in your world would advise you not to....whatever works.....)

I have nothing against headgear. After all, we identify one another chiefly by our toques, n'est-ce pas? But I did wonder ---- heads of state...? That isn't standard diplomatic protocol, afaik - which is not very far, evidently, in this bravest of all possible new worlds. It's that high-lit part I'd like to see more of. That's why I enjoyed Shields and Brooks (before television news was banned from our living room).

Last edited by Serpent on November 9th, 2017, 7:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Re: 27 Killed In Texas Church Massacre

zetreque » November 8th, 2017, 8:00 pm wrote:I'm really liking RJG's argument here. Also someone should throw in the stats for Nevada (which I assume is high but not where I live and tons of people carry) Idaho and Montana where people think you are crazy if you don't have a gun. Please include these other areas where there is a HIGH gun ownership and people carry concealed everywhere they go.

Firearm deaths are consistently higher in states like Montana and Idaho which have minimal standards for gun permitting and allow carry. And other sources, if you need that broken down more, show that the higher rate is found in suicides and gun homicides, i.e. not "good shootings."

But you knew that already, didn't you, from several other threads we've had on this topic, including the one that Paul Anthony started and ran for nearly 40 pages a few years back?

I am going to stop posting factual information, because I don't think that's of much interest here. As has been discussed, people have certain basic feelings about what guns mean in terms of societal security and they will stay pretty entrenched in that due to the way guns are a proxy for their larger feelings about belonging to an identifiable American culture. Facts are to be weaponized in America, not objectively and calmly examined. (see today's new thread on how unconscious influences may drive the way people seek to validate their beliefs...http://www.sciencechatforum.com/viewtop ... 24&t=33792

....or don't read it, because the authority figures in your world would advise you not to....whatever works.....)

Those states also lead in suicide -- is there another analysis the focuses on particular types of gun related deaths?

But it`s all just statistics - not the underlying causes. The trouble with analysis is that it has to take such a quantity of data and so many factors into consideration, it takes far too long to read, digest and fact-check. Most people simple haven`t the time or patience to slog through so much information.

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Trump is correct in that those around the teenage shooter knew he was disturbed. But what were they supposed to report?

Thanks to Trump and his Republican Party, semiautomatic weapons like the AR-15 used in the shooting are perfectly legal. Were his former classmates supposed to call 911 and report that this nineteen year old kid was buying legal weapons?

Thanks yet again to Trump and his party, access to mental health treatment has been drastically reduced over the past year. How exactly were those around this kid supposed to steer him toward increasingly nonexistent mental help?

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On the one hand, I am well aware that it is rather dubious we can solve the problem with gun control when there are already way too many guns out there already.

On the other hand, I question the sanity of people blaming the people themselves for the problem while fighting for the liberty of these same people to carry bigger and more dangerous weapons. Huh??? Sounds to me like handing out hair trigger machine guns to two year-olds fully loaded with all safeties off.

For me it is no longer about solving the nearly unsolvable problem, it is about identifying the lunatics even if they account for nearly half the population. I am not going to vote for people so full of BS and idiocy.

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The nature of mental illness is that sometimes it arises with a seeming sudden outburst or a full psychotic break, because humans are good at concealing their inner thoughts and turbulence while a mental illness festers and spreads within. So, while there is much good in early diagnosis and intervention, it would not end mass shootings. Which is why Australia and other countries took the gun control path instead. And reaped the benefits.

Saying there are too many guns out there is stating a problem, not the death warrant for any possible solution. Gun buybacks, notices sent to all licensed gun owners and tough financial penalties for every year they do not bring their weapons in. Special licenses for heirloom weapons, from which firing pins have been removed. Ban on all sales of ammunition, harsh penalties for smugglers paired with technology to scrutinize incoming shipments to the U.S. Hunting legal at hunting lodges, where weapons are checked out to visitors and turned in when they leave, all members strongly vetted. Problems are solved with many small measures, there is not a single giant panacea pill that we can all take.

The most important step might be a constitutional convention, where we confront the ambiguous wording that is addressed to an 18th century rural nation, and make it clear that militias have been replaced with a professional military and National Guard units. We have modified, even repealed, other amendments - that's what a living system of law does.

People of conscience need to speak up and condemn those who are okay with carrying water for the NRA...and also the coffins of dead children. Vote them out.

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Australia is a particularly good example. We have so much in common, it is hard to argue against their success.

Braininvat » February 16th, 2018, 12:34 pm wrote:Saying there are too many guns out there is stating a problem, not the death warrant for any possible solution. Gun buybacks, notices sent to all licensed gun owners and tough financial penalties for every year they do not bring their weapons in. Special licenses for heirloom weapons, from which firing pins have been removed. Ban on all sales of ammunition, harsh penalties for smugglers paired with technology to scrutinize incoming shipments to the U.S. Hunting legal at hunting lodges, where weapons are checked out to visitors and turned in when they leave, all members strongly vetted. Problems are solved with many small measures, there is not a single giant panacea pill that we can all take.

small measures? I have no reason to oppose such a program, but I doubt you are going to sell such a thing in this country. I would be a great deal happier if we could at least stop trend towards making even more powerful weapons more easy to acquire. That would at least show a tiny bit of sanity on the issue.